ABSTRACT
This chapter considers a perspective on L2 proficiency grounded in an integrationalist rather than a segregationalist approach to language analysis and consider some of the implications of integrationalism for L2 use, in particular how we understand proficiency and its assessment. The chapter analyses data from a study by Lantolf and Ahmed on the variable performance of an adult L2 speaker of English. Atkinson expressed deep concern at the nature of the person positioned at the heart of the acquisition process in second language acquisition (SLA) research: author frequently find the reading of SLA research to be almost an exercise in surrealism based, in the just-mentioned contradictory 'present absence' of human beings. Integrational linguistics begins from the premise that 'human beings do not live in a communicational world that is neatly and permanently compartmentalized into language and non-language'.
